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Policy makers must concentrate more directly on quality of the development process. The
quality of development is completely masked if the policy maker does not pierce the
aggregate measure of GNP and consider its composition and distribution (Meier, 1989).
There is general agreement that growth, in the very long term, eliminates most absolute
poverty but also that some people may be impoverished by development. From a
comprehensive analysis ofthe employment problem, it becomes expedient that the objectives
of greater utilisation of labour, diminution of poverty, anc improved income distribution
should be complementary, not competitive goals. Dealing with disparities in income
distribution within the Ulundi Local - Zululand District Municipalities is very imperative.
Development initiatives ought to be steered paying much attention to how the distribution of
income changes in the course of development. This recommendation is in support of the
relatively high unemployment level in section A compared with the remaining four spatial
units in the study area The approach ought to influence policy direction of the local
municipality about the need to spearhead sustainable poverty alleviation programmes.
Decision-making on matters of collective interests in the local municipality should be
multifactoral. Empirical evidence beyond political inclination should drive matters of
sustainable quality of life and local economic development strategies. Trading potential of
the study area still remains underutilised. The following roads R66, R34 and P700 are
important links that connect the study area to other local and district municipalities. The
envisaged increased traffic volume creates trading and development potentials along these
roads. Commercial ribbon development along these roads and the inter-modal point of R34
and R66 roads has the propensity to create a multiplier economic effect and to reduce poverty
and unemployment so as to improve the quality of life of the people. However, a mobile
police station at the inter-modal point is quite important to allay the fears that its isolation
from the main town may create to potential criminal activities.
The industrial spin-offs of Richards Bay may extend landward towards Ulundi in the
foreseeable future. Workers may commute with cheap available means oftransport (rail) and
P700 between Ulundi and Richards Bay. In the case of the coal railways, this would create
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